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Quincy Butler came out of the Calgary Stampeders’ West Division semifinal win over the Saskatchewan Roughriders with decidedly mixed feelings.

The win, of course, was awfully nice. But . . .

“Honestly? After the Saskatchewan game, I felt good (to win),” nodded the second-year Stampeder defensive back on Monday as he and his teammates packed their bags for their final road trip of the season. “But I didn’t really feel TOO good because I felt like we left plays out there that we should have made, and we gave up a lot of plays.”

Those big plays — none bigger than Darian Durant’s 24-yard touchdown pass to Greg Carr that put the Riders up by a point with less than a minute to play — were the biggest reason the Riders were able to hang in until the very end before the Stamps pulled out the victory at the end.

But as the Stamps celebrated the victory, the sobering reality was that Durant had torched the Calgary secondary for 435 passing yards and four touchdowns, and waiting in the wings were the rested and confident reigning Grey Cup champion B.C. Lions with last year’s CFL Most Outstanding Player Travis Lulay at the helm.

So there was some hard work to be done, in an awful hurry.

“We came into practice focusing,” said Butler. “We knew they were a veteran team, they had two weeks to prepare for us, so they were going to do a couple things different. So we had to change up our game plan a bit and pay attention to detail. Be patient, don’t get frustrated.”

That approach couldn’t have worked any better as the Stamps played arguably their finest 60 minutes of defensive football this year in 34-29 win Sunday at BC Place Stadium to earn a trip to Toronto for Sunday’s Grey Cup.

The stats didn’t tell the whole tale on Sunday. After all, Lulay finished with 300 yards in passing.

But it took him 34 completions to reach that total — in contrast, Calgary’s Kevin Glenn completed fewer than half as many passes (15) for more yards (303).

Also impressive was the Stamps holding the Lions to 73 rushing yards (running back Andrew Harris accounted for just 33 of them), and, most importantly, not allowing a B.C. offensive touchdown until the game’s final minute.

Key to that success was tackling — the Stamps hit early and they hit hard, and no Lion was able to break significantly free from a tackle.

“I think it was just concentration, everybody focusing in,” said linebacker Malik Jackson. “We have guys who’ve been in the situation before so they knew what it takes, and throughout the week they were constantly reminding everybody just to keep things together and focused. And when we went out there, everybody was on the same page, you could just tell.”

On Sunday, another test against a very familiar face. As an Edmonton Eskimo up until being traded in the off-season, Argos quarterback Ricky Ray did some unspeakable things to Calgary defences over the years. His strength is patience and accuracy — nobody throws a better corner route than Ray.

But the Stamps have dealt with Ray enough over the years to not only know his strengths but his vulnerabilities as well.

“You know what? I think (knowing Ray) does help in some aspects of the game,” said Stamps coverage linebacker Keon Raymond. “They have a different offence out there with Scott Milanovich (than the one Ray guided in Edmonton), but with his throwing rhythm, he’s still the same player, and we’ve had some success against him. But this is the Grey Cup. He’s been here a couple times and he knows the magnitude of the game, he understands that he has to be at his best. So do we.”

It’s not just Ray, of course. He has a dangerous receiving corps led by MOP candidate and 2012 receiving-yardage leader Chad Owens, who caught 11 footballs for 207 yards in Sunday’s East Division final win over Montreal, and featuring Ray’s former Eskimo teammates Jason Barnes and Mo Mann, not to mention the always dangerous Andre Durie.

“Yeah, another big challenge,” added cornerback Fred Bennett. “But we’ll be ready. Pretty good receiving corps, and we have our work cut out for us again this week. But the guys we have back there, we’re hungry, we’ll be ready to play.”

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Shored-up defence made all the difference for Stamps

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